Category: West Ham Police Court

‘If the trucks had been thrown off the line they would have been dashed into the bridge’: an East End train disaster narrowly avoided

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In mid June 1888, in what was to become a dreadful late summer and autumn of terror in the East End, a young man appeared at the West Ham Police court accused of an act of willful damage that might have caused a localized tragedy.  Henry William Fox (19, and a described as a labourer) was put in the dock to answer a charge that he, and some persons unknown, had placed a large piece of wood on tracks of the railway that served the Victoria Docks.

Robert Clayden, a signalman on the London and St Katherine’s Dock Company railway, testified that at 4 o’clock on Friday 15 June he had been in his box when he noticed Fox and three other men ‘playing around’ on the tracks. They had a large section of wood made up of two scaffold planks bolted together to make about a foot square. They had eased this onto the tracks, just after a bend and before a sharp decline. Claydon stated that, in his opinion, the driver of the next train (due in 30 minutes) would not have seen the obstruction in time to apply the brake.

The signalman immediately left his box and ran off to apprehend the trespassers, shouting ‘do you want any help there?’ The quartet scattered but deciding that Fox was the most responsible Clayden pursued and captured him with the help of a dock constable, Henry Kimpton. Inspector Hamilton was shown the obstruction before it was removed and Fox was taken away to be charged.

In court Fox’s defense – conducted by a Mr Willis (jun) – the bench was told that it was a case of mistaken identity; Fox was one of four others and he wasn’t the person responsible for blocking the railway. His solicitor applied for bail, which was refused, as the case ‘too serious’.

On 22 July Fox appeared at the Old Bailey where the case against him was heard before a jury. Claydon was the first witness and explained that his job was to control the swing bridge that served Bridge Docks. The planks used to block the line were those deployed in the painting of ships at dock. When not in use, as this one wasn’t, they ‘lie about in the dock and are washed about by the water’ he told the court.

He said that when he asked Fox and his friend s if they wanted ‘any help’, the accused told him to ‘Go and f— yourself’. At this Claydon blew his whistle (to frighten them off) and clambered down from his box. A chase then ensued and Fox was arrested, question by the dock inspector (George Hamilton) before being handed over to PC William Richardson (280K) of the Met. Fox’s maintained his defense that it wasn’t him but someone else and said he’d been in the area because he was looking for bird’s nests.

One of the company’s drivers, John Sherlock, took the stand to tell the court that 10-15 trains used that line every day and agreed that the position of the timber would have made it impossible for any driver to stop in time.

‘The curve is sharp’ he explained, ‘if the trucks had been thrown off the line they would have been dashed into the bridge’.

Fortunately the quick action of the signalman had averted a disaster and almost certain loss of life. Fox was young and was given a good character. As a result the judge went easy on him: he was sentenced to six months at hard labour.

[from Reynolds’s Newspaper, Sunday 17 June, 1888]

The NSPCC steps in to ‘save’ four kids from their drunken mother

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The NSPCC was founded in 1884 (notably a lot later than the charity for the protection of animals) with the mission to force society to take much more care over the neglect and abuse of children. In 1889 it had its first breakthrough when it successfully campaigned to get parliament to pass legislation to protect children and at this point the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children added the word ‘National’ as it expanded nationwide.

Mr and Mrs Farrant must have been amongst the first wave of parents to be prosecuted as a result of the society’s actions. In February 1896 the couple were summoned before the magistrate at West Ham Police court charged with neglecting their four children.

The case was brought by the NSPCC and prosecuted by Mr Moreton Philips on their behalf. The parents were defended by their own solicitor, Mr Fred George. The NSPCC were alerted to the plight of the children by the Farrants’ landlady and visited their home in Wharf Road, Stratford. Inspector Brunning of the Society found the kids living in desperate conditions, the three youngest being left home alone for long periods.

All four children – James (7), Racheal (5), Minetta (3) and George (1) lived in a condition ‘likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health’. The inspector reported that ‘the children were dirty and insufficiently clothed’ and they were ill. He told Rachael Farrant in no uncertain terms that she must act to improve things or a prosecution would follow.

The family moved – to Tenby Road – but there was no improvement. When Brunning tracked them down again he found them in the same situation only now both James and George had developed opthalmia (possibly conjunctivitis) in their eyes and the ‘place was in a horrible state’. If the eye disease was not treated it could lead to blindness but the state of the place and the mother suggested that the care of the children was hardly top of Mrs Farrant’s ‘to-do- list.

In court while James Farrant – a cooper – was said to be a hard-working man who gave his wife 20-30sa week for the family, Racheal was ‘addicted to drink’. The neglect was proved beyond doubt and so it only fell to the magistrate to determine punishment. This might have severe consequences for the children because both parents were now liable to be imprisoned.

In the end the magistrate decided that James was less culpable than his wife, since he gave her ample money to look after the children and household. So he fined him 20s and let him go. That would still make a dent in the £3 he earned a week (about £230) but it kept him out of gaol. Racheal was not as fortunate. Since she was held most to blame the justice sent her to prison for two months, with hard labour. It was hoped, the magistrate added, that the ‘rest’ from the drink would help her quit.

He didn’t say what would happen to the children if James Farrant had no one he could turn to look after them but with four children under 7 it was imperative that he found a family member of female friend to step in quickly, or they’d end up in the workhouse. The NSPCC might have saved them from neglect but its actions may well have resulted in a worse and more uncertain future for the Farrant children.

[from The Standard, Thursday, 7 February, 1895]

Little boys should not play with guns: a cautionary tale from West Ham

Vintage engraving from 1864 of showing a victorian Revolver

William Slade wasn’t a bad lad but like many nine year old boys he was fascinated with guns. His father kept a loaded revolver in his desk and, while he was supposed to keep this locked he had lost the key some time ago. William knew where the gun was and in November 1885 he took it out of the drawer to play with.

On the 18 November he took the pistol down to the river bank at Plaistow where he showed it off to his friends who used it to shoot at the pigeons and wildfowl. He must have enjoyed being the centre of attention so the next day he and his mates were back by the river again, getting through his father’s arsenal of 30 live cartridges.

At half past one he was back at school where no doubt more small children wanted to see the now famous weapon in action. William loaded the chamber with a fresh bullet and thought he’d carefully fixed the firing hammer so it couldn’t go off.

But then tragedy struck. He was ‘swinging the revolver about when it went bang’. A boy next to him fell to the ground and William rushed off home to his father. In the meantime the stricken lad, another nine year-old named Henry Leach, was taken to Poplar Hospital where he died of his wounds.

When William admitted what he’d Mr Slade took him by the arm and delivered him to the police station to face the music. Inspector Golding  attended the inquest into Henry Leach’s death where a verdict of misadventure was recorded.

Later that month father, son and police inspector were all present at West ham Police court to hear the magistrate (Mr Phillips) express his sorrow for the death of Henry and the trauma suffered by both families. As the coroner had determined that the death was an accident he discharged William into the care of his father.

One hopes that Mr Leach secured the revolver and young William never handled a gun again.

[from The Morning Post, Thursday, 26 November, 1885]

A mutiny at the Royal Albert & Victoria Docks reveals the hidden DNA of the capital

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Since the 1980s London has lost what remained of its working port on the Thames. The massive docklands development wiped away the last vestiges of warehouses and quays and transformed the area into smart housing, commercial centres and leisure outlets. It is still possible to see some of the buildings that survived the Luftwaffe and the developers but often they are little more than a façade and their function has changed.

In the 1880s however London was still a bustling port, the greatest in Europe if not the world. Thousands of ships were loaded and unloaded here, and teams of stevedores directed gangs of dockers in hard manual labour to bring in products from all over the Empire and the rest of the globe.

It wasn’t only the goods that were imported: the docks teamed with people from all over the world – Portuguese, Cypriots, Chinese, Arabs, American, Africans and south east Asians amongst them – a reminder that London has been a multi-cultural society for well over 150 years.

Most of those that were not white were collectively known as Lascars. Most of these were from India and many from Gujarat and Malabar or from what is now Bangladesh. They were recruited in large numbers to serve on British registered ships but often treated poorly by comparison to white European sailors. Lascars were paid less and often left virtually homeless while they waited to get a ship back home. The shipping companies treated them so badly because the lascars had a reputation for being ‘trouble free’. I would imagine that contemporary racism played a part in all of this as well.

Before we dismiss the lascars as submissive however here is an example of them standing up en masse and, while it was ultimately unsuccessful, it demonstrates that they were more than capable of doing so.

In early July 1884 four lascars sailors were brought before Mr Philips at West Ham Police court charged with being the ringleaders of a mutiny on a British vessel docked in London. The formal charge was that they had refused to obey their captain, William Turner of the Duke of Buckingham, a steamer operated by the Ducal Line Company.

The ship’s crew was made up of 45 seaman, all ‘coloured’ who had signed articles in January 1884 to serve on the Hall Line’s steamer Speke Hall, for a year. The ship docked at Liverpool for repairs and the owners decided to transfer the men to the Duke of Buckingham while they were completed. When the crew reached London and discovered that this ship was headed for India via Australia they protested. Some argued that their contract (articles) was with the Hall Line not the Ducal Line while others complained that the journey would be too long, and they would be beyond their 12 months of employment.

18 of the 45 men refused to work and four were identified as ringleaders and arrested, hence the court appearance in West Ham. The four were: ‘Amow Akoob a serang, Manged Akoob, a tindal, and Fukeera Akoob and  Adam Hussein, Lascars’. ‘Serang’ probably meant that Amow Akoob was a captain or boatswain while Tindal is a town in Tamil Nadu in southern India.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the English magistrate wasn’t about to get deeply involved in an industrial dispute. He pointed out to the men that at the current time they were under contract and warned them that they were liable to ‘penalties’ if they and they rest of the crew continued to refuse to work. In the end the four men decided that they’d made their point and had little to gain by continuing their protest. They agreed to return to work and were discharged.

We have heard a lot about Caribbean migration this year, with the anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrushand the revelations of the Home Office’s scandalous treatment of some of their descendants. Immigration is often seen as a mid to late 20thcentury phenomenon, a product of the end of empire. But for London, and other port cities like Bristol and Liverpool, immigration has been part of the fabric of our history and our success for hundreds of years. London is built on the backs of migrant labour – migrants from all over Britain, Europe and the World; migrants of all nations, all races and all faiths. If we could analyze London’s dna it would reveal us to be the children of a global trading people and that is why it is the greatest city in the world.

[from The Morning Post , Monday, July 07, 1884]

Prison is no deterrence for an East End watchmaker

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Edward Oakey was seemingly a man for whom frequent court appearances and even prison were no deterrence, at least when he was under the influence of alcohol.

The 32 year-old German-born watchmaker lived with his wife in east London but the pair were far from happily married. Described as ‘somewhat addicted to drink and abusing his wife’, Oakey had already seen the inside of a London prison when the Thames Police court magistrate sent him down for assaulting his wife earlier in 1883.

Now, in late December he was back, charged once more with assault, on this occasion by ‘kicking her on the body’.

Oakey had returned home from his workplace at dinner time and set about his partner, grabbing her by the throat and propelling her around the room. He dared her to go back to the law again, saying he ‘wanted to do six months for her’. Mrs Oakey tried to calm him down and eventually he went out again with her pleas to avoid the drink following him down the street.

Her good advice was ignored however, and by 10 at night he was back, ‘very drunk’, and the violence and abuse started again. He punched her in the face and knocked her to the floor, before starting to kick her with his booted feet. Someone must have heard her cries and a police constable was summoned to help. Oakey was arrested and the next morning was hauled up before the magistrate at West Ham Police court. There he received not six months but just three, with the additional penalty of hard labour.

Did it do him any good? I doubt it. Domestic violence like this was endemic in the working-class communities of London and had little regard for ethnic origin. Oakey was probably lucky he hadn’t come up before Mr Lushington at Thames because he was particularly intolerant of wife-beaters.

Mrs Oakey may also have a part to play in the relative leniency he received. Many wives wanted their abusive husbands reprimanded, they wanted the violence to stop, but often not at the cost of losing his pay-packet for any significant period of time. Two months’ loss of earnings must have been hard to bear; three months was worse but to send him away for much more than that may have plunged the family into rent arrears, critical debt, poverty and the workhouse. For some a ‘bad’ husband was better than no husband at all in a society which provided little or no support for this occupying the bottom rungs of the ladder.

So let’s hope that when the watchmaker came out of prison in early 1884 he had mended his ways as skilfully as he usually mended timepieces and that, for Mrs Oakey at least, there was a happy new year ahead.

[from The Morning Post, Friday, November 30, 1883]

Striking workers in West Ham are thwarted with the help of the bench

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If the Match Girls’ strike of 1888 and the Great Dock Strike of August 1889 can be seen as two of the most important victories for the British Trades Union movement then another dispute in 1889 must go on record as equally important, if only for demonstrating the limits of that success.

The Silvertown strike, by workers at Silver’s India Rubber and Telegraph factory in West Ham, lasted for 12 weeks as the workers, emboldened by the success of other unionists in the capital, demanded better pay and conditions. However, the owners of the factory, S.W.Silver and Co, resisted the best efforts of the striking workforce to force them to negotiate and succeeded, in the end, in breaking the strike.

The workers were aided by Eleanor Marx, the daughter of Karl, and Tom Mann the co-author of New Unionism, the defining work of the new Labour movement in London. But the bosses in this case held firm and refused to capitulate, using the press to criticise the actions of the strikers and questioning the use of picketing. This had been a tactic used in the Dock Strike but then it had failed to dent public  support for the dispute; in 1889 at Silvertown it was seemingly much more effective.

We can see the ways in which the courts were used to break the strike in this report from   The Standard, in November. A number of summoned were heard by the sitting magistrates at West Ham concerning employees of the factory who were accused of ‘intimidation and riotous conduct’.

The summonses were brought by Mr Matthew Gray, an employee of the firm, and prosecuted by the company’s legal representative, Mr St. John Wontner. The strike had ben underway for six weeks and the legal questions turned on the legitimacy (or otherwise) of picketing. St. John Wontner explained the tactics used by the striking workers:

‘The entrance to the works was in a cup de sac‘, he told the bench, ‘and every day hundreds of the workers collected at the top and and hooted at the people as they came out, and shortly afterwards the women left their employment’.

Mr Baggallay warned the strikers that if they continued with this sort of behaviour they would be severely dealt with. ‘They were perfectly entitled to go on strike’ he conceded, ‘but they had no right to threaten others who desired to go to work’. He bound them all over on their own recognisances for £5 each and dismissed them.

In January 1890, unable to support their families through the strike and with a hardline attitude from management continuing, the workers were literally ‘starved back to work’ and the strike collapsed. Other firms were quick to congratulate Silver’s management for their fortitude and equally quick to learn the valuable lessons it taught them.

[from The Standard, Saturday, November 09, 1889]

Today the site of S.W.Silver and Co is the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery on the banks of the Thames

Excessive punishment of an eight year-old truant earns the perpetrator a fine.

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There is a perception that discipline in schools is not what it was and while few would call for the return of the cane and the slipper, some commentators have suggested that school teachers have been left with very few ‘weapons’ to ensure order in the classroom. Since 1987 corporal punishment in state schools has been banned; private schools followed suit in 1997, but I remember it when I was at school in the 1970s and early 80s. Teachers routinely hit boys at my grammar, one quite openly in the classroom, while a visit to headmaster would often involve a few strokes of the cane. There are lurid tales of Winston Churchill being beaten at school, an experience shared by thousands if not millions of children.

In the 1800s corporal punishment was part of everyday life. Masters beat their servants (especially younger apprentices), men hit their wives, prisoners were whipped, and members of the armed forces were flogged. So it really is no surprise that parents and school masters routinely thrashed youngsters and sent them home with welts and tear-stained faces. What is perhaps surprising is on occasion some parents actually challenged the brutality of the punishment handed down to their offspring.

In May 1886 a little lad of eight, Thomas Bryant, skipped school because his mother wanted to keep him at home. On the next day he attended as usual but as he sat waiting for his name to be called his headteacher, Mr Robert Burton, identified him being absent the previous day and called him to the front of the class. There poor Thomas was hit three times with birch rod on each upraised palm and a further three times across his back.

Once he got home his mother asked him what had happened as she was shocked to find bruises on his hands –  evidence of the force of the injuries inflicted on him. When he told her she resolved to take it up with the school as her boy was not regularly truant, and she was rarely in trouble with the school board. When she got no joy at the school she formally summoned Burton for assault, and the case came before the London Police courts.

There she explained to the West Ham Police Court magistrate that  the family had suffered a series of tragedies in recent years:

‘One of her children was recently burned to death while she was at work, and another was nearly drowned, and she had to keep him at home’.

The very first time this boy had returned to school the master had beaten him for being absent. The man clearly little compassion and a violent streak that suggests he was entirely unsuited to his chosen occupation.

Despite this Mts Bryant was not opposed to the use of physical chastisement if it was necessary; she had told the school master that he should punish her boys if they played truant while she was out at work. However, this did not mean she had given him license to ‘bring bruises on their hands and backs’.

There seems to have been no father at home, so perhaps he had died or abandoned them. Mrs Brant was trying to cope with childcare and keeping the family’s head above water; no easy task in the 1880s (or in any age for that matter).

In court Mr Burton, as head master at The Grove Catholic (St Francis) School in Stratford (which is still educating local boys and girls) defended himself. He argued that the punishment he had meted out to Thomas was proportionate and not excessive but the magistrate did not agree. Instead he stated that Burton had overstepped his authority and failed to provide a safe place for the children in his care. Punishment at school should be ‘judicial and deliberate’ and administered in the presence of other teachers (presumably to avoid abuse like this). Thomas’s hands were still bruised some two weeks after the incident, evidence enough that Burton had used excessive force. He fined the master 20s and costs.

Today if Burton had acted this way he would have been sacked and protected for abuse. There is no place for violence in schools, towards pupils or staff, and someone that has to resort to beating an eight year-old to establish their authority is very far from having any in my opinion.

[from The Standard, Thursday, May 27, 1886]

A shocking case of unlawful dissection

As Elizabeth Hurren’s recent work on the use of pauper corpses in teaching hospitals has shown there was a deep seated fear of both the legal and illegal dissection of the dead in Victorian England. For the poor burial was expensive and sometimes unaffordable but the alternative, a pauper burial by the parish, carried a stigma that most wanted to avoid at all costs. Hence the period saw a proliferation of burial clubs; a way of saving for the inevitable and drawing on the support of others in similarly dire straights.

The medical profession struggled to gain the trust of the public  in the 1800s and the fear that surgeon might be less than picky about where they got their cadavers to do their research upon contributed to an underlying reluctance of the working classes to embrace the doctor in the way we are used to today.

This case, from 1871, illustrates some of these concerns and sheds light on a practice that is often hidden from history.

In October 1871 John Connor (a ‘respectable looking man living in Trinity Square’, near the Tower) approached the sitting magistrate at Southwark with a complaint about Guy’s Hospital. Connor claimed that his brother had been admitted to Guy’s seven weeks earlier suffering from ‘dropsy and some other disease’. Dropsy is more commonly termed edema today and  ‘is an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the interstitium, located beneath the skin and in the cavities of the body, which can cause severe pain’. It is not thought to be life threatening but is (and was) uncomfortable.

However, poor Mr Connor’s sibling succumbed  to one disease or another because he died in hospital on the 5th October, in the presence of his family. They asked to have his body removed on the same evening so they could make the necessary arrangements for his funeral. However, it seems this did not happen.

The hospital said it was too late to transfer the most that night and promised it would be done in the morning. The Connors accepted this but made a point of saying that they wished that the body was not to be interfered with (I presume they meant not subjected to a post mortem examination). They made a note that notices displayed in the hospital specifically forbade any such dissection of the body wothout the approval of the relatives of the dead.

Imagine their shock then when on receiving the body of their loved one the next day they discovered that he had indeed been subjected to a dissection without their consent. Connor told Mr Benson (the magistrate) that his brother had ‘been cut about from the neck to the lower part of the abdomen’.

He had complained to Mr Steele (the resident medical officer) and had succeeded in meeting with Mr Habershon who had treated his brother at Guy’s. He told them how ‘shamefully’ they had been treated but all he got were denials and  obfuscation. The magistrate sympathised with him and said he had heard of similar complaints from other relatives of deceased patients in the hospital. However, there was nothing he (or the law) could do without specific details and the names of those concerned.

The magistrate continued his criticism of the hospital authorities for hiding behind the ‘wealth of the institution’ and stated that he was clear that illegal dissection was being carried out there. Mr Connor thanked him for his time and left, sadly without getting the ‘justice’ he sought.

[From Reynolds’s Newspaper, Sunday, October 15, 1871}

A missing husband at West Ham

If you have been following this blog you will have noticed that while the focus is on the Police Courts of London in the 1800s the work of the courts and magistrates that presided in them covered a lot of business that can not be described as ‘crime’. People used the police courts as a sort of first-stop help centre; to prosecute crime certainly, but also to complain about poor working conditions, a lack of support from parish officials, and sometimes as way of getting important information into the public domain. They were helped in this by the presence of the media of the day, the newspapers, who reported stories they thought would interest their readers.

Today’s story is a case in point; a crime may have been committed but it is unlikely.

Mrs William Blay presented herself at West Ham Police Court to seek the help and advice of the sitting justice, Mr Phillips. She and her spouse had been married for 15 years and had never had a cross word she told the beak. William Blay was a Thames lighterman but had recently been working as a labourer at a dry dock at Ratcliffe.

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Ratcliffe in the 1890s

The couple lived in Stratford and William had left the family home on Livingstone Road at just past 5 in the morning, getting to work ok. He’d left there at 9 (people worked long hours in the nineteenth century) but never made it home. She knew he was ‘in the habit of coming home by the tow path of the Rice Mills River, as it was a short cut’, and she feared he might have fallen and drowned.

The court usher intervened; Mr Izatt told the magistrate that had William fallen in and perished he thought his body would quickly have been found, as the canal drained daily. Mrs Blay continued, giving a description of William. He was 41 with a fair complexion, blue eyes and light whiskers and mustaches. He had been wearing ‘a dark jacket over a blue guernsey, fustian trousers, and a flannel shirt’. His clothes were old and tatty, she told Mr Phillips, because his work was hard (and not well paid she might have added).

He had a cut on his head which had healed to leave a scar, one of his kneecaps had been broken and ‘on the foot of the same leg his his toes were bound up, him having met with several accidents recently’. William Blay was probably working as a day labourer because he could no longer operate as  lighterman due to the state of his poor health. Little was done to support workers who were injured at work and William was probably doing his level best to keep the family out of the workhouse.

Mrs Blay asked for the press’ help in finding him and the magistrate thought it likely they now would, she thanked him and left. In reality there was very little she could hope for. No one was going to mount a search for a poor half crippled labourer who had probably fallen into the canal or a ditch so exhausted must he have been having tramped to Ratcliffe from Stratford (about 6 miles, so perhaps an hour or more’s walk) for a minimum of a 12 hour working day in the heat of summer.

We might remember that our society has imposed rules on how long people can work and made great strides towards protecting workers from accidents and supporting them when they are unable to continue in the same employment. We should never take these hard won rights for granted.

[from Daily News, Saturday, July 22, 1882]